Resolved: Issues with IZ Ordering off NZ Inventory

Ex Libris Ticket: 06620571

Resolved

Current Status as of 3/11/2024: The ordering bug should now be resolved. Please send the SILS Op Center an email if you encounter any more problems ordering on NZ inventory (SILS-sysops [@] cdlib.org ).

Background

Last fall the CDLNZ project team identified several different ways campuses could create orders in their Institutional Zone (IZ) based on Network Zone (NZ) inventory. We compiled these options and then requested campuses provide feedback on the pros and cons of each approach for their situation.  Our resulting summary of the feedback and recommended next steps can be found here. 

Unfortunately, several of our campuses discovered a significant bug with the ability to order off NZ Inventory. Researching this problem took a significant amount of the group's time in January and February. It has also stalled our group's ability to continue testing and documenting order options. We are currently waiting for Ex Libris Development to fix the issue.

Ordering Bug

After extensive testing, the CDLNZ project team was able to reliably replicate the bug that campuses were experiencing. It occurs in cases where a network zone electronic collection does not have a license attached but does have group settings defined. If there is no license attached but there are also no group settings, i.e. the collection is available for everyone, ordering appears to work fine.

For example, Ren min ri bao = Rhenmin rhbao (People's Daily) (Collection ID 61402847060006531) does not have an attached license and is available for UCB, UCD, UCI, UCLA, UCR, UCSB, UCSC, UCSD. Because it's available for both UCD and UCR, there should be an order link in their IZ. However, due to the bug, it does not appear and they are unable to order off the NZ Inventory.

In contrast, UCLA encyclopedia of Egyptology also does not have a license attached but is available to all campuses. Both UCD and UCR have the ability to order this resource off the NZ Inventory.

In August 2023, Ex Libris told us that the ordering problem was due to a comma in the Organization Unit Name in three campus institutional zones (IZ): UC Merced, UC Santa Barbara, and UC Santa Cruz. In addition, they need to update a backend NZ table to match the IZ names (see screenshot below).

In November 2023 we tested this change our sandboxes and determined that this change does fix the order link issue. In addition, we did not discover any problems as a result of the change. However, we were unable to test any potential Analytics issues because we do not have Analytics sandbox access.

Next Steps

Operations Team has approved the change in production pending some tweaks to the Organization Unit Name Change Decision Page.

Ex Libris Ticket History

12/13/2022 - Original ticket submitted to Ex Libris (06595329). At this point we had not identified a pattern.

12/14/2022 - Ticket assigned to Alma Tier 2 Support.

12/19/2022 - We requested an update.

12/27/2022 - Ex Libris told us that IZs could not order off NZ Inventory unless a negotiation license was present. This is not correct but since the response came during winter break the first ticket was closed before we had a chance to do more testing and respond.

1/10/2023 - Second ticket was cloned based on the original ticket (06620571). We also provided examples of where there was no NZ license but campuses were able to order off NZ inventory. As an aside, it was at this point that we discovered we were missing License Negotiation Member information in NZ Analytics (ticket# 06620585).

1/11/2023 - Ticket was assigned back to our initial Tier 2 contact.

1/27/2023 - Tier 2 support reiterated that a license was required to be able to order even though we had provided counter examples.

1/31/2023 - We requested that Ex Libris review our counter examples again.

2/3/2023 - Ex Libris support person acknowledged our examples but noted they would be out for the next week.

2/14/2023 - Support found documentation confirming that a license is not needed for IZs to order and set our ticket to Pending Customer Confirmation.

2/14/2023 - We asked why, if a license is not required, IZs were unable to order certain NZ resources.

2/15/2023 - Support sent our question to development.

2/28/2023 - Throughout January and February the CDLNZ group continued to look into this bug and, after extensive testing, found what we believe is the pattern: The IZ order link does not appear when the network zone electronic collection has group settings defined but does not have a license attached. We updated the Ex Libris ticket with our findings.

3/2/2023 - Support confirmed they were seeing the same pattern.

3/15/2023 - Support let us know that they had met with development. ". . . I met with development to look at why ordering from the NZ is inconsistent, and it does look like something is not working as expected.  Development will need to investigate the matter more thoroughly. Unfortunately, we do not have a solution at this time, but development is actively working to find one. . . "

4/18/2023 - Requested an update.

4/19/2023 - Support requested an update from development.

6/7/2023 - Development has set a tentative fix date of October 2023.

8/17/2023 - Development told us the reason campuses can’t order off NZ inventory is because 3 campuses have commas in their Organization unit name. The former CDLNZ-PT members created test scenarios where the 3 campuses are not in the available for group but the testing campus (UCR) still does not get the order link. We have asked Ex Libris to look at our new examples and also have requested this be added to the monthly support meeting on 8/18/2023.

8/18/2023 - From Ex Libris “The comma must be removed [from IZ Organization unit name] in order to correct this. Once the comma is removed development will be able to fix the source code in the mapping table to match the name. “

8/18/2023 - Asked some follow-up questions and then we later talked about this in the monthly support meeting we have with Ex Libris where the head of Tier 2 support agrees that the answers we’re getting don’t make sense.

8/22/2023 - Ex Libris reiterates we have to change Organization unit name prior to any further testing of the ordering bug.

8/22/2023 - We request a meeting with development to talk about this.

8/29/2023 - Development does not feel a meeting is necessary at this time. They provided further information saying that at the time of implementation the NZ and IZ names matched and the IZ names were changed at some time after implementation.

8/29/2023 - Asked why if the mismatch of names is a problem, all IZ ordering isn’t impacted.

9/8/2023 - Ex Libris again said they have to have the names matching before any further testing can happen.

9/8/2023 - SILS Op Center opened another ticket (06870436) asking the implications of changing the organization unit name. In that ticket we were told it was a purely cosmetic name but could impact some Primo VE displays (and maybe the URLs).

9/12/2023 - SILS Op Center sent back some follow-up questions in preparation for creating a test plan for the sandbox.

9/15/2023 - We had another monthly support meeting and learned that from support’s viewpoint, the organization name is purely cosmetic. However, there’s a table development has that uses it. Based on that, we asked what else that table can impact.

9/20/2023 - This question has been passed along to development but it’s currently holiday season in Israel (where development is based).

11/1/2023 - SILS Op Center has created a test plan and solicited feedback of the test plan from CDL Shared Collections, OT, E-Resources, Acquisitions, Resource Sharing, and Discovery. We’re currently testing the existing configuration in the sandbox prior to implementing Ex Libris' suggested change in the sandbox to see if it fixes our ordering issues.

11/13/2023 - We finished testing the changes in the sandbox. Changing the organization unit name did fix the problem and we did not identify any problems with the change. Our next step is to determine if this should be implemented in production.